Quiet—that's what the town of Spender's Ferry is. The lake, the abandoned mill, the woods behind the house—everything is so rural and peaceful, not at all like the clamor and constant street noise of the Bronx. When Charlie and Constance are brought in to investigate a murder and the poisoning of a dog, they discover that the placid woods of Spender's Ferry muffle a teeming jungle of secrets—secret vices, secret pasts, secret pasts, secret pleasures. And one man's pleasure, as the saying goes, is another man's sweet, sweet poison.